I am not a morning person

"Writers in our own century, hunting as always for metaphors that will stick in the mind, have called it the Midlands, the Middle Border, the Corn Belt, the Breadbasket, the Inland Sea, the Great Valley, the Heartland, the Hear of the Country. Whatever the name, this is my home region."  Scott Russell Sanders

My "The Midwest" photo gallery will be photos that I'm taking since moving back to Indiana after a long stint in Washington and a year in the Carolinas. You'll notice a lot of quotes from the Indiana native Scott Russell Sanders accompanying my pictures. Sanders is one of the most brilliant American writers and certainly one of the best to reside in this region. Coming from the Ohio River Valley himself, he is able to capture the soul of this region, its past, present, and the likelihood of its future if we don't love our land more than we are now.

Sanders' words are moving in a conservationist tone, but his honesty to our human limitations, rings through in essays that plead for change while not coming across as overly preachy. I know now, even though I’ve not been back very long, I will be capturing many images that question our mistreatment of the land in this region. I would like my pictures to mirror the voice of Sanders when they point out this way of trashing resources. I want to plead for change but not preach, not condemn. Recognizing that all litter is not deliberate, all carelessness is not calculated, I’d like to ask everyone (myself included) if this is the standard by which we want to live by.